Revisiting Sembene’s Women: The Four of Xala
Xala (1975) is one of the better known and most written about creative works of Ousmane Sembene’s career. Like all of his books and movies, Xala is a realistic satire in which the main character, El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye, becomes afflicted with a xala (a Wolof term for the curse of impotence). El Hadji, once a wealthy member of the Chamber of Commerce in newly independent Senegal, squanders all of his money attempting to remove this xala, and unfortunately, ends up penniless and jobless. Without a doubt, Xala is a piece of artistic commentary on the impotence of the independent African state. The newly positioned African leaders do not have the virility or the stiffness of character to be effective rulers of their countries. A plethora of book chapters and articles have been written about Xala in both its textual and cinematic articulations concerning its depiction of ineffective African leaders of the post-colonial period. Therefore, there are innumerable theoretical lenses that one can read Xala. This essay, examines the embodiment of Africa and African culture, in its various stages of its periodical development as preformed through the female protagonists of the film. In El Hadji’s three wives and daughter we have Africa’s traditional past, its transitional present, its vulgar present, and the Pan African ideal of its future. Through the symbolism exhibited in these four women, Sembene exposes the challenges that face the post colony and attempts to imagine a successful direction for the future.
Still from Xala (1975). Seune Samb, Thierno Lèye and Younousse Sèye who play Adja, El Hadji and Oumi respectively.
Before discussing the female protagonists of the film, it is important to recount the plot and its major thematic elements. At the core, Xala, in both its cinematic and written form, is a creative interpretation of the unattained expectations of modernity in the independent African state. Independence from colonial domination brought hopes of prosperity. In the case of Senegal as depicted in the film, the struggle between French cultural dominance and African cultural inferiority, as imposed on Africans during the colonial era, has proven to be the largest barrier to national cohesion and therefore the root of its impotence. The infiltration of French culture created a capitalistic and individualistic social climate that disrupted the communal harmony of African life that had existed prior. Independence only further complicated this rift. Those who had been elites under colonialism were the first African rulers of the state. But, having achieved such success during colonialism served as evidence that they had assimilated to French domination at a deeper level than their peers. As a result, the first African rulers could not shake free of their acceptance and colonial reverence for French culture. As rulers, they had an ideological and cultural disconnect from their citizens in a way that made them ineffective and impotent rulers, therefore material conditions are left to govern human relationships[1]. Sembene’s El Hadji (whose name means "man who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca") is a member of the elite class during the colonial period and after independence[2]. El Hadji belongs to a social class that Sembene described as “only feel[ing] significant when they express themselves in French [,] they merely copy the west and western bourgeois culture”[3]. El Hadji’s struggles in the film arise from his attempts to live within two worlds, the individual and the communal. This binary is usually considered to simply be the Franco-European and the African. It is important to not use communal and traditional as synonyms when discussing African culture. Later on in this essay, I will discuss that for Sembene a return to traditional life alone is not an answer for a better and corrective future alternative[4]. Nonetheless, these men find financial success within the individual/Europeanized world, and then choose to reclaim their ties to the communal/African world when its suits them.
Still from Xala (1975). Makhouredia Gueye (front, left) plays the unnamed President of the Chamber of Commerce. Thierno Lèye (second-to-last row, far right) plays El Hadji. Courtesy of Films Domireew / Alamy
Affiliated with a group of “westernized Africans [who believe themselves to be] chameleons that change their appearance to protect selfish interests” [5], El Hadji lives the majority of his life in the individual realm. He chooses to engage in the communal realm as far as his romantic life is concerned with his multiple wives. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and in the first scenes of the film he and his colleagues are seen in African regalia ejecting the White government from their post. Claiming Africa for the Africans, they pledge to rule the state with the only true form of socialism, African Socialism[6]. After the opening sequences, all of the heads of state revert back to their Franco-European and assimilated selves. They are always dressed in suits, ride in a chauffeured Mercedes-Benz, drink Evian water, and are constantly trying to forge quick business deals. As liberators of the African state from European oppression, these men feel that it is their right to live in any way they see fit and to make money in both legal and illegal ways. Unfortunately for their citizens, the ways that these new leaders have chosen to live and rule their countries is not much different than that of the colonizers before them. They are nothing more than a black face to the colonial system[7].
Polygamy becomes the gateway with which El Hadji and his peers can affirm the virility of their waning Africanity. Much to the dismay of his first two wives and children alike, El Hadji takes a third wife in the beginning of the film. The wedding day is the first day of his xala. After refusing to perform a good luck ritual on the wedding night at the behest of his new mother-in-law, El Hadji is unable to muster the stiffness to consummate his marriage. This failure sends him on a wild goose chase to remove the xala that has robbed him of his manhood. But, his inability to find the origin of the xala makes him unable to find the proper cure. After trips to different marabouts and borrowing money from a business fund, he is left broke and remains impotent. He is also fired from his position in the Chamber of Commerce for embezzlement. In the scene where his peers reject El Hadji, he attempts to connect with them on the communal level by pleading for their forgiveness in Wolof. This is a turning point in the film because prior to this moment El Hadji speaks almost exclusively in French. He is brutally rebuffed by one of his colleagues who say: “In French old boy, the official language is French”[8]. In the end, both his second and third wives leave him, and the only people who stand by his side are his first wife and their children[9].
In the final scene it is revealed that the leader of a band of beggars, Gorgui, placed the xala on El Hadji. The curse was pay back for El Hadji having falsified the names of the Gorgui and his family members to steal a plot of land from them resulting in their homelessness. Gorgui wanted El Hadji to see how it felt to have all that he had worked for vanish before his eyes; he wanted him to know how it felt to be impotent in all areas of his life. The only way to have the xala removed is for El Hadji to stand naked while the band of beggars spit on his naked body to purify him of his past transgressions. The band of beggars is the only true communal entity in the film. They are always shown in a group, they eat in a group dividing all their food equally, and since some of them have disabilities, they carry each other on their backs from place to place. As homeless beggars, the men are considered to comprise the lowest rungs of society. But, it is only through their spitting sperm-like wads of spit onto El Hadji that he can even hope to be reborn and to reintegrate himself into any rung of society— a failed businessman is a social outcast[10]. In the words of Teshome Gabriel, the ritual of spitting “implies that the new bourgeoisie, when reeducated and having undergone proletarianization, will become active and valuable cadres when the previously dominated class seizes power”[11]. Although the proletariat in this case has not seized political power, they have seized power over El Hadji, and it is only through his recognition of their power that he has the chance of redemption. The film ends with a freeze frame of the spit that adorns the body of El Hadji. The viewer is not explicitly told if he is in fact cured, but we are led to hope so.
Xala is usually attributed to the jealously of a first wife, but in the case of El Hadji, his first wife is the only wife who does not leave him during his descent. Adja (which means female pilgrim) is the most traditional of his three wives and to Sembene she symbolizes the African past[12]. Always dressed in traditional clothing, she only speaks Wolof, and stoically accepts her husband’s collection of wives. She does not condone polygamy, but it is a facet of tradition that she has learned to live with. As the first wife, she is afforded more autonomy as well as power over the second and third wives. And she knows that if she divorces El Hadji, she can only hope to be the third or fourth wife to another man at her age. So, she, like other women of similar life status regardless of the political status of her country, preserves her dignity and denies her true feelings. The perseverance of Adja is the reason that she is symbolic of the traditional past, a past that Sembene suggests should not be repeated. The mere fact that Sembene depicts Adja in pain alerts the viewer that there are cracks in the foundation of traditional polygamy. Just because women grit and bear it does not mean they are being treated fairly. They can still feel hurt, humiliated, and abandoned[13]. By Islamic law, a man can take as many wives as he can support and care for equally. Adja clearly does not feel that she is given equal love and attention, thus El Hadji is not fulfilling his duty as a Muslim husband and a provider. Her loyalty is the mark of her Africanity. For El Hadji, she keeps him anchored as she is the custodian of African values[14]. She truly believes in the solidarity and longevity of marriage and of family no matter the circumstances.
Oumi, El Hadji’s second wife, is a symbol of Africa in the process of neo-colonial transition. She obviously believes in polygamy enough to be a second wife, but only as long as she is provided for sexually and financially. Unlike Adja, she wears provocative western clothing; straight haired wigs, and mixes her use of Wolof and French. Like Adja she is not happy about her husband taking a third wife. In a scene where Oumi comes to El Hadji’s office to ask for more money she vehemently accuses his new wife, N’Gone, of being bad luck. Although he is struggling financially, he continues to give her money to keep her happy. But, sexually, he is unable to satiate her. In the same scene, she says: “It’s my turn. I want you at the house tonight. You know I am always ready”[15]. He shows up to her house in hopes that he can at least perform for her. But, the next time the viewer sees Oumi she is packing up and leaving El Hadji because he can no longer meet her requirements[16]. As the symbol of neo-colonial transition, she is a phase of El Hadji’s life that could not endure. Oumi exists within the machine of desire. She has an ever-evolving list of desires that need to be met, and she is never satiated[17]. She was not a wife that could persevere through her hurt and humiliation because she is only hurt and humiliated when her material desires are not met. Thus, the phase of the African state that merely wants to be saturated with material and carnal stimulation cannot endure[18]. El Hadji cannot not ride in a Mercedes-Benz and drink Evian water forever while he obtains his financial means by robbing those like the band of beggars of their stability. Eventually, it will be his turn to feel displaced.
Still from Xala (1975). Thierno Lèye and Younousse Sèye who play El Hadji and Oumi. Courtesy of Films Domireew / Alamy
On the day of their wedding, N’Gone’s mother tells her that the “man is the master, you must always be available. Don’t raise your voice. Be submissive”[19]. N’Gone has no spoken lines in the film. She is solely a prize—she is a symbol of excess for El Hadji. He believes that at this stage in his career he deserves a third wife. She is not only a sexual object, but she is an object of status. Whether in reality he can equally care for three wives or not, to the outside world he will be seen as a man who can provide, and who has the financial power to run three households. El Hadji’s inability to consummate his marriage has a twofold effect. He is not able to sexually possess and own his new bride, and she cannot prove her virginity. If the marriage were to fail between them, the fact that she cannot prove that she lost her virginity to El Hadji will make her a tainted woman. As a symbol of sexual excess, N’Gone’s face is only shown to the viewer in a handful of scenes[20]. In fact, the last time that her face is seen is in a nude picture that hangs on the bathroom wall on their wedding night. Her artistic depiction mirrors her objectification as her physical presence is as static as the photograph[21]. After the wedding day, N’Gone is only present in scenes where El Hadji tries to perform sexually after his visits to marabouts. In these scenes, all that we see is her backside. She has no personality, no humanity; she is caught in the web of his machine of desire. As a result, N’Gone leaves El Hadji when he no longer has the economic means to either justify or support her desired social status[22].
Although N’Gone is the trigger for the xala, it does not end when she leaves because El Hadji has not been re-educated. That is, he has not recognized and acknowledged his past transgressions that have led him to this point. The only woman in his life that affords the promise of re-education is his daughter Rama. Rama, who is the same age at N’Gone, is the daughter of Adja. She is very bold with her criticisms of her father because she seems to be the only woman who could survive without him. He is her father, but because she does not see her self-worth as linked to the superficial values of her father. She is at a safe distance to speak her mind. As the daughter of Adja, she is acutely aware of how her father’s actions emotionally affect those who are dear to her. She wishes that her mother had the independent spirit to divorce her father. On the day of his marriage to N’Gone, she says in a firm voice “all polygamous men are liars”[23]. Her father promptly slaps her in the face and retorts that it is men like him who drove out the colonialists and freed Africa, so, she should have more respect for polygamous men like himself. Rama knows that men like her father drove out the colonialists, but she also knows that men like him have kept her country economically dependent on the west and have exploited the majority of their peers through neo-colonial practices[24]. Through the character of Rama, the future of Africa is symbolized. She may not know exactly what type of Africa she would like to have in the future but she knows which facets of the past (polygamy, for example) she would like to leave behind[25].
Still from Xala (1975). Thierno Lèye and Dyella Touré who play El Hadji and N’Gone. Courtesy of Films Domireew / Alamy
As a symbol of the future, Rama is possibly the most important character of the whole narrative. Rama “only uses the aspects of western culture that can serve in daily life- education, modern technology- and does not confer on imported goods the same fetishistic quality as her father”[26]. Because her mother is the figure of tradition, her being has been nurtured by tradition, but she is a progressive woman of her times. She speaks both French and Wolof, wears both traditional and European clothing, as well as hangs images of Amilcar Cabral and Samori Ture in her room. She uses Wolof in her intimate conversations with family because French is for the outside world. Arguably, the most famous scene of the film takes place between Rama and El Hadji in his office when they discuss her mother. In this scene, El Hadji is framed with a map of a partitioned Africa to his side. It is here that he offers Rama a glass of water and she declines stating that she does not drink imported water. Rama is framed with a unified Pan-African map behind her head that shares the same colors as the traditional boubou. Below is a portion of their dialogue in the scene.
El Hadji: (angrily) Rama why do you always answer in Wolof when I speak to you in French?
Rama: (in Wolof) Father, have a good day.
…
El Hadji: Did your mother send you?
Rama: No, I came on my own. I am old enough to understand certain things.
El Hadji: (suspecting she is alluding to his xala) Understand what!
Rama: Mother is suffering.
El Hadji: Is she sick?
Rama: Physically, no. I remind you, father, that mother is your first wife.
El Hadji: I know, my daughter. I will come by. Tell her so.
Rama: No, she doesn’t know I have come.
El Hadji: My child, you don’t need anything? (Looks into his wallet)
Rama: Just mother’s happiness. (Rama exits and the camera lingers on the map of unified Africa)[27].
When questioned on his character of Rama, Sembene has said: “this young girl [exemplifies] a step forward in a society which must find a synthesis. It must do so, but how? One can no longer be traditional but neither can one completely resign oneself to European ways”[28]. Rama erases boundaries that separate the past and future and tries to live as a successful blend of the two. When she tells her father that all she desires is the happiness of her mother, she is speaking of both Adja and her motherland of Africa. Her father is responsible for the unrest in both her household and her country.
Still from Xala (1975). Mareme Niang plays Rama
Rama exists as a possible conduit for her father’s re-education and redemption. She is the only positive representation of the symbiosis of African and European culture[29]. It has been hypothesized that Sembene speaks through Rama in the film. Having grown up in colonial Senegal as a Muslim, Sembene had to fashion a similar positive symbiosis of African and European culture in his own life. The same uncompromising stand that Sembene took in his own life and creative work towards the elite’s abuse of power is the same stand that Rama takes against her father[30]. In various interviews about his work in general, and Xala in particular, Sembene has made it clear that Marxism is the medicine for Africa. But, this is Marxism without revolution[31]. Revolution rid Africa of European colonists, and Africans simply assumed the positions Europeans left empty. In the restructuring of post-colonial Africa, both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat have equal responsibility. The proletariat, like the beggars, need to let the bourgeoisie know that they are no longer going to accept their wrongdoings and manipulation passively. The success of leaders should never come entirely at the expense of their citizens[32]. In addition, men should concern themselves with the desires of women. No woman should feel imprisoned in a polygamous marriage like Adja. The bourgeoisie, like Rama, need to evolve to a place where they can relate to the proletariat on a humanistic level and appreciate their common heritage of humanity. Although optimistic, this idea hinges upon the notion that if the elite and the working class allow themselves to exchange on a human level they can together shape a harmonious future[33].
At the wedding of El Hadji and N’Gone, Adja says to a disgruntled Oumi: “patience doesn’t kill, if so I’d be dead”. Citizens of the post-colonial African state must perfect the art of patience. African tradition must be patient with the future, and the future must be patient with tradition. For example, Rama may not believe in polygamy, but she can sympathize with the reason why her mother stays in a polygamous marriage. All she can do in the future is not enter a similar union. The post-colonial state may function without a violent revolution, but if the social structure is still built upon a colonial foundation it will remain as impotent as El Hadji. The majority of its citizens will never have a fair chance at success. The kind of poverty that led to the destitution of the beggars can be called a social disease–it is social impotence[34]. Citizens must be patient yet diligent with their efforts to change their society. The goal is to maintain traditional elements of their society that have contributed to stability, while reconfiguring the poisonous social structure bequeathed upon them in colonialism. In this journey, they must maintain patience, keep trying, and must never give up. African culture, like Adja is enduring. In the words of Rama’s idol Amilcar Cabral: “Repressed, persecuted, betrayed by some social groups who were in league with the colonialists, African culture survived all the storms, taking refuge in the villages, in the forest and in the spirit of the generations who were victims of colonialism”[35]. Whether El Hadji and his peers are aware of it or not, they are victims of colonialism. They are victims because through the colonial spirit of greed they have allowed themselves to abandon their tradition, their women, and their destined progress in communal harmony.
Still from Xala (1975). Seune Samb and Younousse Sèye who play Adja and Oumi respectively. Courtesy of Films Domireew / Alamy
Patience and endurance are virtues that Sembene had to exercise in his own life, as he had to be patient and endure the Senegalese government. Rather than participating in a violent revolution, Sembene made revolutionary films. As a testament to how flawlessly Sembene utilized the technique of cinematic realism, Xala was banned and censored numerous times by then President Leopold Sedar Senghor. It seems the corruption depicted by Xala struck a nerve in the ruling elite class. Leopold Sedar Senghor made great contributions to African literary history and led one of the only nonviolent movements of independence on the African continent. But, the ideology in which he planted his twenty-year rule of the country could be typified in his statement: “let us assimilate, not be assimilated”[36]. In Senghor’s opinion, the highest form of culture came from the mix of the African and the European. However, he rooted this idea in the notion that what made African culture beautiful was emotional and fiery nature. By adding European culture into the mix, Africans could learn to refine their emotions and utilize it in a more appropriate manner. On Senghor’s influence upon the thematic elements of Xala, author Vartan Messier asserts,"Senghor’s embrace of Francophonie and his politics of economic cooperation are in line with the ideologies of a ruling class and intellectual elite who perpetuated various forms of cultural, economic, and political dependency toward the former European colonizers”[37]. In Xala, Sembene suggests that a blend of cultures is necessary for the future but this is not due to a deficiency within the African milieu. This blend is needed because the colonial past can never be erased, Africans must attempt to define themselves within the historical moment they find themselves in. The post-colonial moment is indeed post of the colonial; the damage has already been done.
In this discussion of the post-colonial state and its impotence, it is also fitting to refer to Achille Mbembe’s article “The Banality of Power and the Aesthetics of Vulgarity in the Post colony”. The schematized female characters are indeed archetypical within their corresponding function in Sembene’s socio-political dialectics, but their status as women and the sphere of El Hadji’s impotence link them to sexual politics as well[38]. In the beginning of his piece, Mbembe defines his use of banality as predictability; it is the predictability of daily actions and gestures that are often vulgar in nature[39]. Mbembe also suggests that the post colony is a place where the complex of power is built upon imaginary guidelines[40]. As we can see in Xala, and in the reality of Senegal, the elite make the rules because they have the power in the colonial system and in independence. It is through the transcendence of their power that the imaginary quality of the social structure becomes clear. It seems that independence has opened up the field of power in the post colony, but it has only placed it in the hands of those who were groomed by the colonizers. They engage in a grotesque life of excess as a means to assert their dominance over their peers.
In the case of El Hadji, his quest for the grotesque renders him impotent in the bedroom as well as the boardroom. However, in his descent to regain his sexual power he loses his political power and all the material accolades of his wealth. He has nothing left to prove to the world that he is accomplished. His entire world is disrupted when his sexual world is disrupted. For Mbembe, the preoccupation with sexual politics is one of the highest forms of vulgarity in the post colony because sex becomes purely a conduit for physical possession. El Hadji wants to physically own, and in some senses, devour his new bride. His self-worth becomes completely indistinguishable from his ability to have an active penis [41]. This leads the viewer of Xala and the reader of Mbembe’s article to wonder: what is the way out of the grotesque? Do all who participate in the grotesque have the potential for rebirth like El Hadji?
The artist must in many ways be the mouth and the ears of his people. In the modern sense, this corresponds to the role of the griot in traditional African culture. The artist is a mirror. His work reflects and synthesizes the problems, the struggles, and the hopes of his people”[42].
The above quote by Sembene from 1977 shows that he does not feel inspired to prescribe a specific direction for the future of his culture. No one should look to him for the answers; he can simply expose the problem. He does suggest that the blending of cultures is a necessary evil in post colonialism and that the distribution of power should be equalized. Sembene does not explicate how Senegal, or any African state, should go about this. It is up to the people to steer their future in the direction they see fit. In the same vein, Mbembe does not offer a way out of the grotesque. According to Mbembe, banality causes the zombification of the masses. The social barriers and obstacles to success and capital in their environment block them. In an attempt to placate themselves to their oppressive social structure, they become numb to their pain. Perhaps the goal of Xala is to awake the masses from their zombification and arouse a desire to exercise their power as human beings by any means necessary, mystically if needed.
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Clara Tsabedze. African Independence from Francophone and Anglophone Voices: A Comparative Study of the Post-Independence Novels by Ngugi and Sembene. (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1994): 130–131 ↩
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John Mowitt. “Sembene Ousmane’s Xala: Postcoloniality and Foreign Film Languages.” Camera Obscura. 31. (1993): 76 ↩
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Noureddine Ghali. “Interview with Ousmane Sembene, 1976”. Film and Politics in the Third World. Ed. John DH Downing. (New York: Praeger, 1987): 73 ↩
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Sheila Petty. “Pugnacite et Pouvoir: La Representation Des Femmes Dans Les Films D’Ousmane Sembene.” Un Viatique pour l’eternite : Hommage a Ousmane Sembene. Ed. Saman Gadjio and Sada Niang. (Dakar, Senegal : Aout 2010) : 35–38 ↩
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Teshome Gabriel. “Xala: A Cinema of Wax and Gold”. Jumpcut: A Review of Contemporary Media.27. (July 1982): 31 ↩
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This is a very obvious nod to the brand of government that Leopold Sedar Senghor pledged to rule independent Senegal with. But, as parodied in the film, Senghor may have been the most successful leaders who attempted to live within the Franco-European and African worlds. ↩
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Sembene. Xala. ↩
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Ibid. ↩
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Ibid. ↩
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Francoise Pfaff. The Cinema of Ousmane Sembene, A Pioneer of African Film. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984): 161 ↩
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Gabriel. 33 ↩
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Mowitt, 76 ↩
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Tsabedze. 138 ↩
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Pfaff. The Cinema of Ousmane Sembene, A Pioneer of African Film.157 ↩
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Francoise Pfaff. “Three Faces of Africa: Women in Xala”. Jumpcut: A Review of Contemporary Media. 27. (July 1982): 31 ↩
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Sembene. Xala. ↩
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Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader. Ed. Laura Chrisman and Patrick Williams. (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1994): 68 ↩
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Pfaff. The Cinema of Ousmane Sembene, A Pioneer of African Film. 160–162 ↩
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Pfaff. “Three Faces of Africa: Women in Xala”. 31 ↩
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Tsabedze. 101–103 ↩
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Pfaff. “Three Faces of Africa: Women in Xala.” 33 ↩
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Sembene. Xala. ↩
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Ibid ↩
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Ibid ↩
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Tsabedze. 109–110 ↩
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Pfaff. The Cinema of Ousmane Sembene, A Pioneer of African Film. 154 ↩
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Gabriel, 32. ↩
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Pfaff. The Cinema of Ousmane Sembene, A Pioneer of African Film. 158 ↩
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Ibid ↩
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Tsabedze, 20 ↩
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Ibid, 4 ↩
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Ghali, 73 ↩
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Amilcar Cabral. “National Liberation and Culture.” Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. Ed. Laura Chrisman and Patrick Williams. (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1994): 62–63 ↩
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Sam Raditlhalo. “Beggars’ Description: ‘Xala’, The Prophetic Voice and the Post-Independent African State.” English in Africa. 2 (Oct. 2005): 170 ↩
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Cabral, 60 ↩
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Lucie Gallistel Colvin. Historical Dictionary of Senegal. African Historical Dictionaries. 23. (Metuche, NJ: The Scarecrow Press Inc, 1981): 259 ↩
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Vartan Messier. “Decolonizing National Consciousness Redux: Ousmane Sembene’s Xala as Transhistorical Critique.” Postcolonial Text. 6.4 (2011): 4 ↩
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Pfaff. “Three Faces of Africa: Women in Xala”. 31 ↩
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Achille Mbembe. “The Banality of Power and the Aesthetics of Vulgarity in the Postcolony”. Public Culture. 4.2. (Spring 1992): 1 ↩
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Mbembe. 4 ↩
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Mbembe. 9–12 ↩
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Pfaff. The Cinema of Ousmane Sembene, A Pioneer of African Film. 29. ↩
Work Cited
Cabral, Amilcar. “National Liberation and Culture.” Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. Ed. Laura Chrisman and Patrick Williams. 53-65 New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Gabriel, Teshome. “Xala: A Cinema of Wax and Gold”. Jumpcut: A Review of Contemporary Media.27. (July 1982): 31-33
Colvin, Lucie Gallistel. Historical Dictionary of Senegal. African Historical Dictionaries. 23. Metuche, NJ: The Scarecrow Press Inc, 1981
Ghali, Noureddine. “Interview with Ousmane Sembene, 1976”. Film and Politics in the Third World. Ed. John DH Downing. (New York: Praeger, 1987): 73-79
Mbembe, Achille. “The Banality of Power and the Aesthetics of Vulgarity in the Postcolony”. Public Culture. 4.2. (Spring 1992): 1-30
Messier, Vartan. “Decolonizing National Consciousness Redux: Ousmane Sembene’s Xala as Transhistorical Critique.” Postcolonial Text. 6.4 (2011): 1-21
Mowitt, John. “Sembene Ousmane’s Xala: Postcoloniality and Foreign Film Languages.” Camera Obscura. 31. (1993):73-94
Petty, Sheila. “Pugnacite et Pouvoir: La Representation Des Femmes Dans Les Films D’Ousmane Sembene.” Un Viatique pour l’eternite : Hommage a Ousmane Sembene. Ed. Saman Gadjio and Sada Niang. Dakar, Senegal : Aout 2010
Pfaff, Francoise. The Cinema of Ousmane Sembene, A Pioneer of African Film. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984
Pfaff, Francoise. “Three Faces of Africa: Women in Xala”. Jumpcut: A Review of Contemporary Media. 27. (July 1982): 31-33
Raditlhalo, Sam. “Beggars’ Description: ‘Xala’, The Prophetic Voice and the Post-Independent African State.” English in Africa. 2 (Oct. 2005): 169-184
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader. Ed. Laura Chrisman and Patrick Williams. 66-111 New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Tsabedze, Clara. African Independence from Francophone and Anglophone Voices: A Comparative Study of the Post-Independence Novels by Ngugi and Sembene. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1994.
Xala, directed by Ousmane Sembene, New York Films, 1975.
May 2020. Vol nº1